"I am by birth a free Commoner of England, and am thereby intailed or intituled unto an equall priviledge with your selfe, or the greatest men in England, unto the freedome and liberty of the Lawes of England."
William Thompson, 14. of December, 1647

Saturday, 28 April 2012

You know, I think I'd take the Daily Mail's campaign against porn a little more seriously, if it wasn't so heavily adorned (or rather endowed)with pictures like the above. There's no news story involved in Imogen Thomas (who?) going to the beach. The reason it is included is so the Mail can put in pictures of a girl with hardly any clothes on. And if blondes is more your thing, fellas, click here ...

Thursday, 26 April 2012

A good example of why government is nothing but a criminal enterprise with an illusory cloak of legitimacy is seen every day in the petty tyranny of councils using strong-arm tactics to shake down motorists for parking in places they have imposed restrictions. Long gone are the days when parking restrictions had anything to do with ensuring no one obstructed the highway. The vast majority of restrictions are merely there to enable councils to extort money from unwary drivers. Attempting to appeal against such threats puts you into a Kafka-esque labyrinth of obfuscation and coercion. Very often the council is breaking the stupid rules, but they don't give a fuck, and in the meantime they've already hired thugs to come round and steal your property.

So we come to the case in point. A disabled, elderly man who suffered a stroke, when Camden Council sent bailiffs to rob him. The council officials will not care that one man's life has been so blighted, because they are scum.

The parking rules and the wheel-clamping rackets are an example of what happens in a society that allows its freedom to be taken away, salami slice by salami slice. If we were still an armed (i.e., free) society, I really don't think the wheel-clampers would exist.

Wednesday, 25 April 2012

Dredging up Dickensian horrors of child labor, the Obama administration has ordered the Labor Department to apply child labor laws to family farms. The new rules would make it illegal for children to perform a large number of labor tasks that have been performed by farm families for centuries. Traditionally, adults and children alike helped with planting and harvesting in the spring and fall, but the federal government is now determined not only to make this a historical footnote, but a criminal offense.

Under the rules, children under 18 would be prevented by the federal government from working “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials” and prohibited “places of employment would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

In addition to making it far more difficult for families to work their farms, the new rules will revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA and replace them with a 90-hour federal government training course, the Daily Caller reports.

In other words, the federal government will forcibly insert itself in the business of teaching animal husbandry and crop management, disciplines traditionally passed on by families and local communities.

Government apparatchiks will now oversee the business of local farming the same way Stalin did when he collectivized farms and “socialized” production at gunpoint in the Soviet Union. Resistance by farmers and peasants to Stalin’s efforts resulted in the government cutting off food rations, which resulted in widespread famine (the “terror-famine in Ukraine” killed around 12 million people) and millions were sent to forced labor camps.

The Labor Department’s effort to further erode the family farm falls on the heels of an unconstitutional executive order Obama issued last year establishing so-called rural councils.

Sunday, 22 April 2012

As my blogging comrade JuliaM notes, the Guardian - via its Sunday sister The Observer - is beseeching the government to turn the flame-throwers on the tattered remains of our liberty in an editorial entitled: "Public health: tackle this obesity crisis, Mr Cameron", the final paragraph of which reads:

No one doubts it is a huge cultural, political and behavioural challenge or pretends there is an easy solution. But if the answers, whatever they are, involve challenging corporate power and practices, legislating to improve the content of food or even limiting individuals' freedom to consume junk, then so be it. Only radical action will begin to win the challenge of obesity.

Here we see encapsulated the strategy of the enemies of liberty. Firstly, we have the manufacturing of a public health crisis; the 'obesity epidemic'. Secondly, we have the identification of the enemy. Following the tobacco-control playbook, this enemy is the powerful corporations who must be curbed by the force of law. Thirdly we have the necessity to protect people from themselves, i.e., an attack on individual freedom 'to consume junk'.

Let us not waste time trying to reason with these people. They are the enemies of all that is good and true.

The fanatical anti-smoking temperance zealots like to accuse everyone who objects to their crusade against Ralegh's demon weed of being in the pay of 'big tobacco'. This is part of one of their key strategies of attacking individual responsibility. It is not so much an attack on our right to choose, it is an attack on the very notion of our ability to choose. By defining their battle as against 'big tobacco', they get to play David to the corporate Goliath, but only play, as the reality is very different.

Firstly, there's no bigger Goliath than the authoritarian state which they are working to aggrandise, and which provides much of the funding for their work. Secondly, they clearly have no problem with 'big pharma', which also bank-rolls their operations and benefits from the sale of 'medical' nicotine. Thirdly, their real battle is against ordinary smokers, especially those with the temerity to argue against them.

Personally, I have yet to receive any payment from 'big tobacco', but I'm quite happy to do so in cash or preferably in tins of Peterson's Irish Flake (see above), which is likely to keep far longer than our sadly depreciating paper currency.

Via Snowolf, I see the self-proclaimed 'progressives' Ken Livingstone and whoever's standing for the Greens have pulled out of a BBC London debate for the mayoral election, taking the standard umbrage at the participation of the BNP candidate. Said Ken:

"The far right want to destroy our democracy and stand for the elimination of our basic rights. They cannot be treated as a legitimate part of politics."

That would scan just as well with 'far left' instead of 'far right', and as for the Gaia-worshippers, you could amend it thus:

"The greens want to destroy our economy and stand for the elimination of most of the population. They cannot be treated as a legitimate part of politics."

As for 'progressives' in general, it's worth noting what exactly that term meant in the first half of the 20th century. By those standards, Hitler was incredibly 'progressive', given that he went further than anyone to implement their favoured eugenics programmes. He was also an early pioneer of enviro-mentalism, what with his new agey love of the 'sacred forests'.

Ken just doesn't want people to see how close the BNP's policies are to his own, and the greens want to sneak into the mainstream of politics, even though, if they ever got the chance, they'd be far more extreme than any of the other parties. As for the other two establishment types, it's likely they'll pull out. Boris will claim a prior engagement, and Brian will bottle it, as without the other two, he'll have nothing to say. No problem. We will then have the opportunity to hear from the UKIP fellow and the independent woman, from whom we note:

Despite those withdrawals, a spokeswoman for UK Independence Party candidate Lawrence Webb said he was still planning to take part.

"We are going to take every opportunity to talk to Londoners, particularly as we are fourth in the polls but are being treated as an also-ran."

She said it was "pathetic" to pull out of the debate over the BNP adding: "Are there any toys left in their pram?"

Independent Siobhan Benita said: "For me it's just really disappointing because this was the only platform the BBC had given me alongside Boris and Ken.

"My feeling is all seven candidates have been selected, all seven should have a voice."

Friday, 20 April 2012

Who can catalogue every inch on our civilisation's slide into the abyss of tyrannical control? So much slips past me, but here's one to note from across the pond. As ever now the case, it's only a question of timing when it's sprung on us here.

The latest brick in the wall is the predictably named “Moving Ahead For Progress in the 21st Century Act,” also known as Senate Bill 1813. (See here for the full text of the bill itself; the relevant section is 31406.) This legislation – already passed by the Senate and likely to be passed by the House – will impose a legal requirement that all new cars made beginning with the 2015 models be fitted with so-called Event Data Recorders (EDRs). These are the “black boxes” you may have read about that store data about how you drive – including whether you wear a seat belt and how fast you drive – ostensibly for purposes of post-accident investigation.

These EDRs are not new. GM and other automakers have been installing them in new cars for years – in GM’s case, since the late 1990s. What’s new is the proposed federal mandate, which would make it illegal to not have one – or (in all likelihood) to remove or disable one in a car required to have the device.

The question arises: why?

Several possibilities come to mind:

First, the EDRs could – and almost certainly will be – tied into your vehicle’s GPS. (Most new and late model cars, conveniently, already have this, too.) Then data about your driving can be transmitted – as well as recorded. To whom? Your insurance company, of course. Progressive Insurance already has such a system in place – voluntary, for the moment. (See here for more on that.)

When EDRs are mandated, you will no longer have a choice.

We’ll be told it’s all for the sake of (groan) “safety” – just like the old 55 MPH highway speed limit and every radar trap in the country. Of course, it’s really for the sake of revenue – the government’s and the insurance company’s. Your rates will be “adjusted” in real time, for every incident of “speeding” or not buckling up. It’ll be so much more efficient than using cops to issue tickets. After all, so many fishes escape! With an EDR in every car, no one will escape. Your “adjusted” premium will be waiting for you when you get home.

Even in the rogues gallery of The Guardian's 'Comment is Free', Neal Lawson stands above the crowd as a Class A Cunt. Via Longrider, it is my misfortune to read his opinion piece on why advertising should be banned. And why is that? Because apparently Neal Lawson cannot see a poster of a male model without breaking down in tears over his own inadequacy. Much as I endorse his self-loathing, unfortunately this is the only rational thought that has occurred in his fevered, authoritarian, freedom-hating mind.

Whatever disutilities one can associate with billboard advertising, they pale into nothing compared to the disutility of having cunts like Lawson spreading their venomous and putrid swill. The agenda Lawson is pushing represents an attack on not merely individual liberty and responsibility, but the very notion of adulthood. On top of this is the repudiation of private property in favour of the collective - a collective, which according to Lawson's despicable view is made up of mindless drones in thrall of whatever advert they last saw.

By the way, the title is ironic. I don't want to ban Neal Lawson, because, unlike Neal Lawson, I'm not a jackboot-licking piece of trash, and I have more than two categories - compulsory or prohibited - for the things in this world.

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

By definition, tax avoidance is legal, but increasingly the professional collectivists are using the term in ways aimed at shifting its meaning. What they want is a redefinition of tax evasion, the 'crime' of not paying all your taxes, so that the state can retrospectively reinterpret its monstrous tax code (the largest in the world) and plunder whatever it wants from private wealth.

One such professional collectivist is union boss Graham Black, writing in the tax-funded (by state sector job adverts) Guardian newspaper. This line especially sticks in my craw:

In Britain, we have a remarkably compliant tax population that knows taxes are a price we pay for a decent society.

There's an interesting piece by Daniel Hannan, but not perhaps interesting for the reasons he would hope. He sets forth the notion that, if all the UKIP supporters decided to dissolve their party and throw in their lot with the Tories, then the Tories would be in a much stronger position. This may be so. As David Brent quipped; 'If my aunty had bollocks, she'd be my uncle'.

His case is premised on a falsity; that the Tory Party is 'eurosceptic'. It is not. It is staunchly pro-Brussels, and always was, notwithstanding the instincts of a large section of the party, including such as Hannan, who remain in the party in spite of this neon-flashing truth.

Neither is the question of national sovereignty the only one of distinction. Those who consistently attacked the puritanical authoritarianism of New Labour, not to say its criminal military interventionism, have nothing to praise in the current government. On both these issues UKIP have taken the right stance.

It is not for UKIP supporters to join the Tories, but the other way around, to get out of the Vichy Party and join the resistance.

David Hockney puts a steel-toe-capped boot where it most deserves to go; into the bollocks of health nazis and joyless authoritarians, such as the much-loathed Andrew Lansley, so-called health minister in the current regime.

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

This time courtesy of the Wasps Nest, I learn of increased fines via the handy 'statutory instrument' method of imposing new rules to govern us without the need of the parliamentary rubber stamp, on parents whose kids manage to escape the state indoctrination camps for too many days. Yeah, because the problem with this country, is that there's just not enough fucking rules. Just a few more reams of regulations, and everything will come right.

I'm just glad I didn't vote for the government that is so far up its own arse that it thinks spending our money on a 'Behaviour Czar' is a good idea.

Saturday, 14 April 2012

Greg Barker, energy minister and chairman of the influential 2020 group of modernising Conservative MPs, also insisted that the changes which started under David Cameron will continue. “It is a one way street,” he said.

A one way street to oblivion, let us hope. It's very clear that the Conservatives are at least as bad as Labour in government. They have continued the puritanical authoritarianism. They have continued the hand-over of power to Brussels. They have continued the Blairites' war-mongering and blood-spilling, most notably in Libya (I wonder how things are going over there? We don't hear too much about the place these days). They are continuing the aggrandisement of state power over our privacy. In summary; same old shit, with slightly plumbier accents.

Fuck the Tories. UKIP are far from perfect, that much is true. They're wrong on some things, but at least they're right on some other things, which gives them a unique selling point when compared to the indivisibly and atrociously cuntish three main parties.

Friday, 13 April 2012

In less than a month, the London Mayoral Election will take place. I'm really not sure if I will vote. If it comes down to; Boris or Ken, I suppose I would favour Boris, but I certainly can't muster any enthusiasm, and maybe it's best not to encourage them.

As any right-thinking anarcho-libertarian will tell you; taxation is theft, or to be more accurate, robbery. This kind of straight talk tends to make the minarchists and classical liberals wince. They may concede the point on the blandly rational grounds that it is correct, but they find it a little tactless to point it out too stridently, especially as their aim is not to abolish the state entirely, but rather to cut it down to a more manageable size.

Nevertheless, there is no reason for the various strands of libertarianism to fall out. I would say the time for that would be when the ‘night-watchman’, minimal state has been achieved, and until that time, the disputes amongst us are largely academic. We are lumbered with the status quo, and that includes a big state and heavy taxation. But, by accepting the fundamental injustice of taxation, it does at least free us from seeking after the will o’ the wisp of a ‘fair’ system, a ‘neutral’ system, and instead lets us focus the mind on reducing taxation in general and the very heart of the matter; government spending.

Whatever the theoretical destination may be, the only way to get there is by little steps, just as long as they’re steps in the right direction. Bringing in new taxes, even with the intention that they will replace other ones would seem to be a mistake, with the risk that we’ll wind up with the old ones and the new ones. Better to freeze the system as is, and then start chipping away at it, piece by piece.

Some taxes seem more pernicious than others. An example, in my view is Inheritance Tax, or Death Tax, as it should be known. Not only does it visit injustice upon the heads of the bereaved, it causes sub-optimal decisions to be taken by the individual while still alive, in order to minimise the bill. Nevertheless, an attempt to abolish it will provoke political opposition with the accusations that it is helping the rich – the implication being that anything which does so, harms the poor. This brings us to the issue of political expediency.

If the possibility arises to cut taxes, it would seem sensible to ‘spread the joy’ as widely as possible. I would target VAT on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes. The justification for this would be that each of these is already subject to a separate duty. A reduction of the cost of fuel would benefit everyone, either directly or indirectly. Not only this, it would be visible. Other targets could be the aforementioned Death Tax and Employer NI. This latter seems a singularly foolish levy on employment, and its abolition could only improve the jobs market. No doubt the left would demand the saving be passed on to workers (a quick way to nullify the point of the change), but it should not be difficult to make a convincing political case for ending Employer NI.

Reducing the size (not to say sheer weight) of the tax code must also be a priority. I suggest setting a target that it should be no bigger than ‘War and Peace’ would be a good place to start.

In summary, a libertarian programme of tax-cutting, whether premised on the inherent criminality of tax or a more moderate position, should avoid attempts to find ‘fairer’ means to provide loot to the government (such as ‘shifting the burden’ onto the rich), but should rather seek to freeze the system as it is, and then proceed to dismantle it little by little, through across-the-board reductions or when possible the abolition of particular taxes. There should be no new taxes (with one possible exception: cannabis!), and an overtly populist tone should be struck, with the stress on giving the people back their money.

(Cross-posted at Libertarian Home, where you can read my responses to someone advocating a large increase to the income tax threshold, rather than across-the-board tax reductions).

... is a warm gun on a cold day. I'm being lazy (or rather I've expended my blogging energy elsewhere), so I'll keep things ticking along with the mighty Hickok45, slinging some lead around with a selection of fine firearms, such as a Glock 19, Glock 20, S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum, an Arsenal AK47, an M1-A, a Browning 1886 .45-70, and a 12 gauge Remington 870.

Monday, 9 April 2012

My fellow bloggers Autonomous Mind, Calling England and The Quiet Man have all covered this, and no doubt many others too, once they've pinched themselves, checked the date-line isn't 1st April and quickly moved through various emotional stages of disbelief, consternation and rage, before settling down to comment of the latest abomination to issue from the Save-The-Planet-Nazi section of the political establishment.

The plan itself, which involves the state preventing people replacing their household boilers or undertaking home improvements unless they hand over additional money for 'green improvements', such as additional insulation or whatever else these delusional regulatory fetishists deem appropriate.

It is, I would say, very clearly not the work of the current government, by which I mean that collection of jostling egos at Westminster, but rather the permanent government which we rarely see - the zealous control-freaks who festoon the ministries, who never need face the people, who take their orders not from us but from the next highest lacky in their insulated demi-monde. Certainly the hand of EU can be seen, no doubt with the usual mailed glove of British government 'gold-plating' - the term used to euphemise taking ludicrous rules from Brussels and amplifying them to show additional contempt for the people of this country.

My advice to the Tory MPs; go back and read a few of the statements you made in opposition. Refamiliarise yourself with the image you then wished to portray. Note the references you no doubt made to small government, reducing bureaucracy, standing up to Brussels, even, some of you, individual liberty, because it is such phrases as these which will be your indictment and, hopefully, your epitaph.

Sunday, 8 April 2012

I have a post category named 'mendacious media'. Here's one for the file. The Trayvon Martin case is obviously much less of a deal over this side of the Atlantic, but NBC's doctored 911 call by the shooter, Zimmerman, prior to the incident has no doubt stoked tensions.

What NBC broadcast:

Zimmerman: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”

What was actually said:

Zimmerman: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”

Wednesday, 4 April 2012

Over at the Guardian I learn that book-seller Amazon is facing a shake-down from the government's tax enforcers, and the Graun is doing its bit to make its readers feel like somehow they've been ripped off too.

Personally, I don't care if they don't pay a penny to the thieving, murderous British state. I'd do the same if I could. Here's the line that launched this post:

"The Guardian asked Amazon why it paid no UK corporation tax on the £3bn it takes out of the economy. "

What is this, the 18th Century? The Graun might not have noticed, but Amazon has not just taken that money for nothing in return - like the state does - it has provided billions of pounds worth of books, and if, by minimising its tax from the greedy bastards at the Treasury, it can do it cheaper than anyone else, good. To say this is not fair on other, less mobile, operations is like complaining that its not fair that a slave managed to escape, when the others are stuck on the plantation. The injustice is not the one that got away, but the imposition of the business-killing burden of our bloated, fascistically-inclined state. E.g. this, from the article:

"Amazon's UK operations are also poised to benefit from Luxembourg ownership in the battle for the lucrative and fast-growing ebook market. Being based in Luxembourg means it can charge VAT on ebook sales at the local rate of 3% rather than the 20% VAT imposed on British-based ebook retailers."

Rather than sending in the goon-squad, the Treasury should deal with the root of the problem, and if it's not sure how to do that, may I suggest taking a mirror and looking in it.

After a year’s virtual silence the man who claims to be the leader of a party which claims to be libertarian has finally made a statement.

Most notable was the absence of any word of apology. Instead he provided an implausible narrative of how elements within the party had launched an attempted coup and engaged in all manner of dirty tricks in order to destroy the party.

Those who have any personal knowledge of these matters, know how nonsensical his account is, and what lacunae lie in the story, such as the episode when he resigned along with his faithful chairman and they tried to de-register the party. The ‘coup’, therefore refers to the NCC meeting held after his resignation, as at least one of the current rump NCC knows, because he was present and voted for the replacements to fill the vacant positions.

He skates very lightly indeed over the central bone of contention; that being his refusal to hand over the party accounts for inspection – accounts which he should have already surrendered to the treasurer at least four months previously.

Had he done this, and had there been nothing untoward, had he had the courage or the sense of responsibility to face the party members, although he may indeed have had to give up the leadership, he could at least have left with some credibility intact.

Instead of this, he decided to lay low for a year, issuing the occasional cryptic message via his blog and waited until all the people who actually cared were no longer members. In this way, I suppose, he has won, and whatever it was he was so desperate that ordinary members, such as myself, could not see remains a secret.

Monday, 2 April 2012

Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance, in dispute with Lord Carlisle (some kind of establishment flunky) over the latest Big Brother Surveillance Bill:

Every year or so in England, a new "anti-terrorism" law is made. Every time, we are told how this is absolutely needed to protect our way of life, and that it will be used only against terrorists and other very bad people. Every one of these laws is mostly used against ordinary people. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, for example, is largely used by local authority snoops to see if people are following the recycling rules or living where they claim to live for school allocation purposes. The American extradition treaty is mostly used to deport men who have broken no law in this country to stand trial in some of the most corrupt and depraved jurisdictions in the common law world. There is no doubt this law would be used to enable persecutions of men who are, by no stretch of the imagination, terrorists.

The police state that has been built up in England is almost uniquely incompetent. Any data about our communications aquired by the British State would certainly be put on unencrypted memory sticks and left on railway trains, or stolen by or sold to organised crime gangs and foreign security services. All promises of confidentiality should be regarded with the contempt they deserve.

We are already living in a state of "anarcho-tyranny." Criminals who should be caught and locked away are kept out of prison, or undeported, in the name of human rights, and are given lavish financial support at our expense. The rest of us get taxed and regulated and spied on, and generally treated like the slaves of an absolute and arbitrary police state.

We are told this new law is needed in a year that will see both the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth the Useless and the Olympic Games. Since the law will need to go through Commons and Lords, it cannot be ready in time. The stated excuse for the law must be a lie.

In general, we are told that our masters need a police state so they can fight the "War on Terror." Really, they need the War on Terror as an excuse for the police state that have wanted since at least the 1970s.

New Labour has excessively relied on mammoth databases and wide powers of data-sharing, on the pretext that it will make government more effective and the citizen more secure. Its track record demonstrates the opposite, with intrusive and expensive databases gathering masses of our personal information – but handled so recklessly that we are exposed to greater risk.

A Conservative government will take a fundamentally different approach. We believe that your personal information belongs to you, not the state.

Oops! Someone should have proof-read that last line before sending it to the printers. It should of course read; "We believe that your personal information belongs to the state, not you."